Exhibiting at HostingCon Global

(The Hosting News) – HostingCon Global is quickly approaching. This premier trade show event for all things web hosting and Cloud will be held this year in San Diego, California from July 27-29, 2015. A highlight of the event is the opportunity to engage with exhibitors – both on the show floor and in a social setting.

Kelly Kocher, Vice President of Event Sales and Operations with the show organizers explained, ”We are 70 percent sold out of space which is ahead of last year on exhibitors. We already have over 25 brand new exhibitors, including TE Connectivity, GoTransverse, Blesta, and more. Other new things include a mobile app that provides attendees with all show information at their fingertips, and we will be serving lunch inside the exhibit hall, making it easier than ever for attendees to meet our sponsors. Also, by popular demand, we are bringing back the closing reception, sponsored by Giglinx.”

We caught up with some of the companies who will be exhibiting at HostingCon in San Diego to find out about the benefits of having a presence on the trade floor – for both the exhibitors and the attendees.

Aaron Phillips, Chief Business Officer with cPanel has presided over some of the great moments on the exhibit floor at HostingCon – not to mention some epic parties thrown by cPanel over the years during the event. cPanel is a consistent sponsor and this year is no different with the company bringing it’s exciting show floor presence to Booth 107.We asked Mr. Phillips about reasons to exhibit and what he sees coming to hosting in the future.

Aaron Phillips: ”HostingCon has such a high concentration of cPanel partners in one place at one time, and it allows us to get face time and hang out without having to travel all over the world to see them. If we wanted to meet with all these companies throughout the year, our Accounts team would never be home. As easy as it is to talk to people via email or phone calls, a lot of business still happens on trade show floors. It may not necessarily be people signing contracts that day, but the face-to-face interaction goes a long way in making people feel comfortable doing business with each other. We may all be representing a company, but at the end of the day, people do business with people.

In regard to future trends in the hosting industry Mr. Phillips added, ”Personalization is huge, and it gets more important each year. We live in such a connected world, and people have almost immediate access to the internet. The hosting industry has made it possible for almost anyone, regardless of technical aptitude, to have a website, and people expect that same level of personalization from their service providers that they get from their social media networks. cPanel actively develops and releases new versions – at least 3 per year, and this is how we stay on top of what customers are requesting. With the latest releases of cPanel and WHM, we have added even more ability for hosting providers to personalize and brand everything from the actual control panel to system notifications. With the release of cPanel and WHM 11.50, we’re adding the ability for people to easily access their calendars and contacts across multiple devices, allowing them to be more connected no matter where they are. You can always see information about the latest features by visiting: releases.cpanel.com. Even though we’ll be exhibiting at HostingCon in the next few weeks, we can’t forget about our cPanel Conference. This year’s event will be September 14-16 in Denver, CO. We’re currently securing exhibitors and sponsors, and we’ve already secured some big names, like Weebly and WHMCS. We’re also opening up registration for attendees soon. More information is available at: conference.cpanel.com.”

Ben Fisher, Founder and Lead Consultant with SteadyDemand.com has been a fixture in both web hosting and HostingCon – having exhibited at the very first HostingCon event in Chicago over 11 years ago. As a true veteran of the hosting industry Mr. Fisher has seen and worked with practically every major hosting provider in some way over the past 15 years. We caught up with him to discover what he expects from the HostingCon exhibit floor and the industry in general.

Ben Fisher: ”Seeing old friends, networking with new people, and discovering great new relationships are the most compelling reasons to exhibit at HostingCon. The most valuable lessons come from meeting new people. Hearing the stories of how they evolved to become part of the industry. Listening to how they want to stand out from the crowd, and in so many ways, want to make a difference. That is so hard to achieve in a crowded marketplace. But, everyone has a different perspective.”

Here’s what Ben Fisher sees for the future, ”Competition in search is fierce. Search has changed drastically in just the last year. There is no longer a ‘page one’ of search, search is personalized. More users are searching with mobile, natural language search is evolving, Semantic Search is a dominant force, and content marketing, along with social, is a key to success. We address these trends by staying ahead of the Social Search curve. Helping technology companies thrive. If you want to learn about Social/Search, and being a thought leader, come find us on the show floor. Or just visit www.steadydemand.com. You can also find me at: google.com/+BenFisher.”

eBridge Marketing Solutions and Hartland Ross are well known to HostingCon visitors. The company conceives and implements Internet marketing and advertising strategies for B2B technology companies around the world. Having been a speaker multiple times, Mr. Ross has shared his web hosting and general Internet marketing expertise over the years. Here are his thoughts on exhibiting at HostingCon and upcoming trends in the industry.

Hartland Ross: ”HostingCon is a well-established and respected conference which brings together the hosting industry in a fun, friendly and educational environment and all in one location making it easier to connect with many clients, peers and vendors under one roof! This is reason alone to be a part of HostingCon but for us, we really enjoying getting to meet and speak face to face with a lot of our clients and prospective clients. This is something that is intangible in value. We also find it useful to remain current with the trends and news in the industry. I think the biggest benefit to exhibiting is that we are able to meet clients who either didn’t realize we would be there and stumble across our booth or to use the booth as a meeting location and one that we will be at for two full days which makes setting up meetings much simpler. We are also able to really get a feel for the impact of our work and more importantly our relationships which we value most.

Competition is fierce in this industry and so we are always looking for ways to help our clients focus on their strengths and exploit new opportunities. Mergers and acquisitions through our site thehostbroker.com remain very active so I would suggest this trend is continuing. We also know Cloud is here to stay so we work to ensure our clients are leveraging relevant terms, consumer behavior and marketing best practices in order to compete in what has now become a global marketplace. Online marketing strategies are dynamic in nature and staying on top of these trends is crucial to success. We need to ensure our clients are at the forefront providing information as it comes available related to trends in search, conversion rate optimization (CRO), new opportunities and consumer behavior. As a result, eBridge is constantly evolving, reading and learning in order to provide our clients with the service and advice they come to expect and deserve. We make sure we are educated on what’s new and potentially launching new services to cover any gaps. To this end, we are working on a new service now however the details will remain a secret for the time being! Please visit us at our booth to discuss your situation. We are planning something different this year so it’s unlikely you’ll miss us! We look forward to chatting further in July!”

To learn more about HostingCon 2015 in San Diego or to investigate show sponsorship or exhibiting please visit: www.hostingcon.com/global.